Everything is moving online – so is self help (try free online self help program)

Slowly we are moving online and so we are dragging everything along us.  At first it was just online chats, than online shops and online consulting. Now self help seems to be moving online as well. Here I am talking about online self help programs, psychological consultations and psychotherapy counseling. Hopefully it means, that a lot of people who are struggling with stress, anxiety and depression and never had a chance to get any kind of help (not even talking about real treatment) will be able to access it now just from their home.

Not much research is done on the effectiveness of online self help programs but so far it is obvious that they have these advantages:

1) Accessibility – you don’t need to drive miles to your appointment and even to leave home. Everything is online.

2) Time efficiency – most of the online programs require you to do some exercises daily, however they are short and this kind of help mainly relies on you improving at the time which is best for you.

3) Price – most of the online programs are many times less expensive comparing with what you would have to pay for the appointments with a therapist if your health insurance does not cover it

4) Overall improvement – the aim of self help programs is to tech you how you can help yourself. So basically it is about motivation, will power and techniques of developing new habit.

Few days ago a new self help program which aims to help the ones suffering from stress, anxiety and depression was launched. Firstly, it helps to measure your stress, anxiety and depression levels in order to figure out if you need help at all and than, if you wish, helps you to deal with your priority. Program uses new concept of helping you to develop new habits and to replace the old ones. It helps you to develop a habit to be happy. And the best thins is – it is actually for free. So even if you are not going to follow it – at least do the test or pass this information to someone who might find it useful. You can access the program on: http://www.coachteam.com/free

Body language

A brilliant short movie about the beauty of the body language

The power of acceptance

There is no need to search… achievement leads nowhere… makes no difference at all. Just be happy now.  Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you think. You are already free. Dan Millman

I do believe that one of the main reasons people are unhappy is because they lack the power to accept things the way they are. It is our nature to struggle constantly with the things we can not change, try to resist the powers which are not under anyone’s control, to fight against the enemies which are invisible. We release so much energy trying to change the things which can not be changed, and don’t even have to change. And at the certain point we realize how hopeless we are, yield so self pity and depression, our own fairs prosecute us in the worm of anxiety, the dis-balance of energy strikes in the form of stress. We get tired of resistance, we stop fighting and than can’t figure out what to do with all these amounts of energy we used to spend in the rage and than we get confused. Not being capable of managing the energy we release it through the smoke of the cigarette, a glass of the drink or a pill. We become miserable because we think that we are hopeless. We still keep on searching the ways to fight, to change, to influence. At the certain point we even forget what is the fight about, what are we struggling with, we don’t even notice that what we wanted to change already changed on its own and passed by.

The key to happiness is to stop struggling. It is not the same as loosing faith it is actually having more of it. The point is to accept the things you can not change and stop worrying about them. The key is not to be stressed about the things which are not under your control. The way is to loose all expectations and to have the goals only. To know exactly what you are heading towards but to make the knot between you and the result loose. Don’t tie yourself up to achievement as it always leads to disappointment. Don’t tie yourself to the expectations because they can simply be wrong and wrongly measured.

Try to look at yourself from far away. Imagine you never even met yourself. You don’t know anything about that person you are staring at. What is that person alike? Do you think he/she is happy? Do you think he/she is depressed? Anxious? Stressed? Is he/she beautiful? Free? Interesting? Attractive? Try to see the way other people picture you. They picture you the way you want to be pictured. As Sophia Loren once said about the beauty of the woman: ‘the beauty consists of two parts – 50& what you really have and 50% what people think you have’. Create that second 50% the way you want. Accept your fairs and failures, accept your weaknesses and stop fighting against them. The same moment you will accept it it will stop hunting you.  And this will be your way of feeling happy. Having no strings attached.  No expectations for the future only the goals set towards overall improvement. Let go things which keeps you from being happy.

You are here now. And you are alive. And the world has so much to offer.

Courage is everything

The encouraging video for the ones who struggle:

The importance of setting the goals during the self help process

”I learned that we can do anything, but we can’t do everything.. at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.” Dan Millman

She is 46. Not ever married. No children. Pretty much no life. Same job she did for 15 years without ever getting even the hope of the promotion. Not because she is not good enough for it. She thought of being the boss here and kicking everyone out but that was simply it. It is much easier to sit quiet, covered up with a mantle of shines and hope that one day someone will notice you and will bring the come true of your secret wishes on the silver plate. However no one ever did as there always were going to be someone who is smarter, better looking, has better experience or at least speaks louder than she did. And no wonder these were the people climbing up or sometimes even jumping over the career stairs. But she really thought she has deserved a better position at work! Not that she wished for a manager assistant or manager position – she wished to be the the head of all the department. To walk with the chin pointed up as all these young shiny people do, who she thought, deserved the positions they are having much less than she did. However that is pretty much the story. She never actually stood up and did something about her job or her life. It is much more simple to hide under these piles of documents which seemed never to increase on the table. And of course to blame the rest of the world for you not ability to take any action.

***

What ever you are into now the most important thing always is to set the goals. It is important always to have a goal – for a minute, for a day, week, month, year. And then to be able to sacrifice the smaller goals in order to achieve the bigger ones. But all of them have to be in order. Timing apparently is everything and the way you manage it, how reasonable your goals for the time are, influences how successful you are going to be in achieving them. To wish for something and to hope for something to happen is obviously good. And these things we wish for sometimes actually happen. However, most of the times to make them happen you need to put effort in it.

This is very important than it comes to the healing process – whether you are suffering from depression, anxiety or some other mental pain. It is important to understand that things do not become perfect in a day, not even in a week or a month. And that your goals need to be achieved gradually. If you are suffering from depression your final goal is to heal and get rid of it with no chance of falling back to it again. But at the stage you are at the moment this goal might not even be that much visible. Set the goal for this week – to accept your depression and make people who are important to you understand what you are suffering from. Set the goal for a month – no more negative thinking, no more self pity, just a believe you will get over it. Set a goal for the year – this is your last episode of depression you are suffering and no way you are falling back to it again. Yes, it is not easy. But it is not even meant to be easy. If you would be able to achieve all your goals within the blink of an eye – would you really value them? Sometimes it actually requires blood and sweat to get where you want to be.

The other value of setting the goals in the healing process (whether it is self help or therapy) is that then you set the goal you become optimist. You actually start seeing the future. And obviously your goal is related to the improvement of the situation you are in now. So you see the future more positive. That’s what being optimistic means – to see the light, even of the brightness of the dusty light bulb from the basement – but to know that it is there. To understand that you are going towards it and that is going to be your final goal.

So get from under that pile of papers in front of you, take that mantle of shines and hesitation off. Stand up. Speak with more trust. Lough louder. Breath in deeper. Make the eye contact with the people longer. Make every shake of the hand stronger. Every step more confident. Become who you want to be but keeping in mind that firstly you have to achieve the goals which are in between you and your ultimate wish. Good luck!

Forgiveness role in self help (Based on Dan Millman story)

I would like to start this blog post with a story written by a wonderful author and self help guru Dan Millman:

Once upon the time, a man was heading homeward, rowing his little boat upstream, when he felt another small boat, heading downstream, collide with his. Since he had the right-of-way, he felt angry. Turning, he yelled at the other boatman, ‘Watch where you’re going! Be more careful!’. The other man apologized, and passed by without further incident.

But an hour later, as the man continued upstream, he felt another boat collide with his. Furious, he turned to scream at this new reckless person -  and his anger vanished when he saw that the boat was empty. It must have come loose from its moorings, and drifted into him. Calmly, he pushed it aside and continued on his journey.

He never lost his temper again, because from then on, he treated everyone like an empty boat.

This is a brilliant story which illustrates that anger is a useless feeling as it can not affect what already has happened and can not do any good for the future events. All the feelings we release is a concentrated energy which gets out of us. Depending on the way we feel the energy we release might be neutral, positive or negative. The most important thing is to understand that all the energy flows going from us to outside are manageable just we need to train and learn how to do it.

Don’t misinterpret the story above. Treating everyone like an empty boat does not mean picturing the other people useless or ignoring them. Boat is here a metaphor resembling the negative feelings, in this case – anger. That empty boat which drifted in the river and accidentally hit the man’s boat was something he could not control. The man couldn’t influence the way the river floats to redirect the empty boat away, the same as the empty boat was floating uncontrolled and hit the other boat by accident. What it teaches us is that anger is such a waste of energy than we direct it to things which just happen and can not be changed. A man could shout and swear, releasing his energy through nasty words and it would be such a waste as it would not change the floating of the river or would redirect the boat. Treating everyone like an empty boat means understanding that some thing simply happen whether we want it or not, but just the same as that boat – it passes away. And then we are left alone in the river again until the other boat hits us. It just happens. It is simply the way life is built. So why worry about something you can not change?

You will probably say that anger is something you can not control. And than something pisses you of you simply get angry. However, you are wrong. All the feelings have a rational component and the beauty of being a hommo sapiens is that we understood how to trick and deal with our primitive human nature and how to control it or at least influence it. There are to techniques you can use in order to get rid of anger:

1. To ignore this feeling and little by little eliminate it from your feeling range. It is not easy to do obviously, but everything that is worth achieving requires efforts. Every time you are in the situation when you feel the anger coming – ask yourself, ‘ Is it something I can change? If nothing depends on me in this situation, why do I feel angry and worried? Is it worth?’ Admitting to yourself that actually in some situation you are helpless and powerless will just let all the negative feelings go away.

2. To understand the anger and to admit it. This is a more simple technique on how to deal with the anger. The magic in this one is that as soon as you say something you feel load it just goes away from your chest and the importance you gave to this feeling before simply decreases. So every time than you get angry at a person or at the situation or even at yourself – just say it load,’I am angry at you’, ‘I am angry that this has happened’, ‘I am angry at myself for doing this’. You will see that as soon you say this calmly, saving your energy, the anger will decrease and it will be much easier to go over it.

It is very important to understand that everything takes efforts. As that song says ‘Rome was not built in day’, so is our improvement – it does not happen in a minute. The most important is to have a goal, to see yourself in the stage you want to reach and take small steps towards it. Sometimes it might require to small steps back to make one big step forward. But everything is achievable it only depends how willing you are to work to get it.

How is depression related to pessimism? Part 2

Welcome back to the second part. As I briefly explained, I do believe that the second and the most important component which influences whether you get depressed or not is whether you are optimist or pessimist. As mentioned before, one of the change which might appear as a symptom of the depression is a change of thoughts. Thoughts become negative and destructive. But what if the way you think is not a possible symptom of depression but its cause? What if being pessimistic s not a possible sign that you are depressed but a factor which will lead you to depression?

We are what we think. The power of our minds is pretty much unbelievable and it is scientifically proven that the way we think not only influence our mental but as well physical health, that what placebo effect is based on, isn’t it? A believe, that you will be ok, that means a positive thinking which is the same as optimism. Being pessimistic relates to the fact that you always imagine the worst scenario. Pessimist would say now, that you never get disappointed, because you always expect the worst, therefore, you don’t get depressed. It’s wrong. Than you are pessimist you live in constant disappointment. You live with the negative thoughts and feelings which might cause you much more damage than a disappointment then you are optimistic. Disappointment? So what? The future will bring something better! That what optimist would say.

Negative thinking, pessimism, is nothing else than a habit. Same as optimism is. People get used to think negatively and they do it unconsciously. And as Seligman wrote in one of his books: ‘Depression results from lifelong habits of conscious thought. If we change these habits of thought, we will cure depression’. So if you are a pessimist – challenge yourself. Challenge yourself to think positive, challenge your conscious and reprogram it!

And finally, a short video, which explains more why some people get depressed and the others don’t featuring Dr. Paul Koeck:

How is depression related to pessimism? Part 1

The primary question I had while thinking about this blog post was, ‘Why some people get depressed and the others don’t?’ My previous post in a way partly answered to this question. As it appears some people have a gene, passed from generation to generation, which increases the chance of getting depressed. And I do believe it is true. Same as a gene of addictions in a way can influence you having a bigger chance to become alcoholic if you ever start drinking more often. How ever, obviously something is missing here. Even though the ones who have the gene have a higher chance to follow it, it not necessarily happens. The first factor which is necessary is obviously stimulus. You don’t become depressed just out of the blue and you don’t suddenly become alcoholic if till than you just had two glasses of Martini in the past five years. So we agree (?), that firstly something needs to call out the gene out of the bottle. Than it comes to depression then it is usually stress, a loss or disappointment. Than it comes to alcohol it is usually the same three factors and the increased amount of alcohol consumed.

But as I mentioned before, I do believe, it is two components necessary to call depression out, but before we overview the second one let’s briefly discuss what kind of depressions there are. I tried to look for the examples around me to illustrate all of these kinds, and considering that almost half of population is more or less depressed, it was not a problem to find them.

1. A normal depression (if a word ‘normal’ can be put with a word ‘depression’ at all) this depression occurs after a loss or a mental pain. A woman in her early thirties. A jewelery designer. Married very young. 11 years in marriage. No children. Than a divorce. Same month a loss of job. I do believe it is pretty hard to move back to your mother than you are 33 and to find out in few months that not only your ex-husband has a new girlfriend but she is even pregnant already. Not to get depressed in this kind of situation would mean you are not really a hommo sapiens. Just the thing with a normal depression is – that it passes. Nature puts everything back in order again and the clouds go away. It did take her half a year though, but it just passed. She has a new job, took a loan for a new apartment, started going out ‘hunting’ again. And I don’t think she is any near of being depressed. It was way too many wrong circumstances at the same time but now it’s over. Same as depression is.

The other two kinds of depression are called depressive disorders:

1. Unipolar depression. This kind of depression is classified as a depressive disorder and is different from bipolar depression by the fact that it does not involve mania. There is no strong distinguishing between a normal depression and a unipolar one as well. Unipolar depression is much closer to a normal one than to the bipolar. It is diagnosed and described exactly the same as the normal depression, negative change: in thought, mood, behavior and physical responses. The only difference I notice between the normal depression and a unipolar one is that unipolar one treated clinically. But this might not depend only on the fact that the case is worse than in normal depression but mostly on the fact whether a patient seeks for help or not. If the above mentioned friend of mine would had been seeking for clinical help I am absolutely sure they would have prescribed her medicine, etc. But she didn’t, so I gave her as example of the normal depression.

2. Bipolar depression. This kind of depression is also called a ‘manic depression’ so basically it consists of two parts: mania and depression. Mania is a psychological condition with a set of symptoms that look like the opposite of depression: euphoria out of sudden, frenetic talk and action and inflated self-esteem. This kind of depression is much more heritable than the other kind. This depression needs to be treated medically as it is an actual illness. It is pretty easy to recognize people having bipolar depression. If one day she comes to you and cries on your shoulder complaining about everything you could ever think of and it lasts for several week: she doesn’t eat, doesn’t want to get out of bed, to talk, to do whatever. You can see that she is drowned in self pity and you have no idea how you can help. But then, the other day she is just extremely happy. You come for a visit, expecting to see her all on the couch again but she opens the door with a cocktail dress and make up, runs around the flat cleaning and you can see that she was cooking like for 4 hours non stop as the amount of food on the table could feed half of Africa. She is happy. Not even happy – she is euphoric. And than these two conditions start changing each other out of sudden. However, medicine can control it.

Now we came to the second factor, which I do believe, influences why some people get depressed and the others don’t – it is pessimism. But to continue this let’s move to the next blog post

Mentally gone

Than it comes to depression, not many people actually know what it is. Probably every second person you know time by time moans of how depressed he/she is. However, the other day you see the same person all shiny and happy and it appears to be that his/her so described ‘depression’ was simply a feeling of the hangover after the weekend.

I have a friend who was constantly suffering from depression. A brilliant artist by the way. We used to meet up like every single day, everything seemed fine and than he was just disappearing for a month or two. Not like disappearing in the sense that no one could find him. He was still there. But always at home. Mainly in bed. Smoking like two packs of red ‘Marlboro’ a day and barely eating. You could not really talk to him and most of the time you could simply sense these strange negative vibrations around. So basically, he disappeared mentally.

I did feel basically helpless. He was always more of the listener than a talker but than it came to these black periods you could more or less count that he doesn’t say more than 10 words a day. You can not just make him go and see a psychologist or stuff him with medicine. He was refusing any of it. so these few months he was going through everything alone. According to him to be a great artist he needs to be depressed as it is the only way he can actually create something deep and useful. I do believe it might be simply just an excuse for self pity but at the same time I must admit that the paintings he made after these black periods where absolutely fantastic. It was something deep in them and you could sense, you could even kinda smell it, that everything on the canvas is somehow real and true.

We had a lot of conversations every time he was out of this black hole, talking during these black periods were basically useless. Though I did try, it was obvious he needs help and I was way scared he is about to hang himself one day. But somehow he just managed to get out of it every time. The only thing I noticed that the length of these black periods were basically increasing by few weeks every time. So the last time he has disappeared I did hear anything from him for almost half a year. I was checking once a month if he is still alive though. Knocking and kicking the door until he bothered opening it. He used to take these long night walks as well, but even I was afraid to meet him during them.

Anyways, I was about to write about these conversations we had after he was out of it. What I basically wanted to know was what is it that he feels. What is it to be depressed. And the answer was very simple – he feels nothing. That what depression was for him, and I do believe that it is like this for many other people – it is a lack of feelings. It is not about being sad or feeling down. According to him, it is the sadness at the stage where you simply feel nothing. He says he doesn’t even remember what he does in these months he is in his depression  again. For him it just passes by and somehow, at a certain point he just gets out of it. It is pretty scary, thinking that he never knows exactly than it is going to repeat again. Sometimes, he says, he can sense it. He sleeps more, eat less, smokes more intensively, forget things. Usually it is autumn and spring he mentally disappears.

As it appeared, his mother was struggling with depression as well. She was an artist, so all of the talent he got, probably came from that side. So did the depression. The only difference was that she was actually suicidal and I do believe that he never tried to raise a hand against himself. Probably because his depression started after his mother suicide, than he was something like 16. He said he is never going to do it, he saw how much suffer it brought to the people around her. It is a bit strange the way he accepts depression as a component of the talent which was passed from his mother together with the genes.

And it was my primary idea of the post, to write about the origin of depression, just because some people are so aware that it is something you inherit. I am not any close to a psychologist or psychiatrist, therefore, I want to share this video with you. It tries to explain what are the origins of depression and how much genetic it is. Hope it will answer some of your questions, enjoy!

Women vs. Men (Why women suffer from depression more?)

I was pretty much aware that women are suffering from depression more than men but I never actually thought that the difference is so huge. Two to one. Exactly, women suffer from depression twice more often than men do. Women do try to commit a suicide more often as well, how ever, in this case they are not the best. Men to it not that often as women do, but much more efficient.

I have stumbled upon lots of different theories on this case but non of them are fully convincing. I’ll try to go fast through the main ones Martin E. P. Seligman briefly mentioned in his book ‘How to change your mind and your life’. So here are the main theories why women suffer from depression more than men do:

1. Women tend to have worse jobs and less money than men do and that is why they suffer from depression more. This theory is FALSE. As research among groups of men and women of the same job positions and income showed rich and powerful women still suffer from depression twice more than the men do.

2. Women suffer from depression more because of the genetic difference. That is FALSE. Science did come to the conclusion that there is a gene which is passed from generation to generation and contributes to depression but there is no evidence that this gene contributes to depression in women more than in men.

3.  There are more conflicting demands on women than on men in modern life.  This one seems to be the most fashionable argument is that is the one about a role conflict. Women suddenly has to take care of everything: family, children, house. It is not that she only needs to cook and clean. She also needs to have a job and to bring income home. So women are kinda taking the roles of both genders. She is not making the cave nice and cozy, but she is also bringing the mammoth home for dinner. However, this theory appears to be FALSE as well. As research show – working wives are less depressed than the ones occupied only with a household.

And there ca be lots and lots of theories mentioned but all of them at the end dash against the wall. Same as Seligman, I do agree that everything depends basically on the fact that men and women are simply different from the psychological point of view. And the way are psychology is constructed influences whether we come to the point where we face depression or not.

There is a very simple difference the way men and women react to things. Imagine you just finished a long lasting relationship. Let’s say it simply didn’t work out, you both got hurt and you both are unhappy. But to be apart is the only way to get of the current situation. So this is one of these cases than it is simply ‘not meant to be’.  What does a man do in this case? A man probably starts working more, goes to do weight lifting for 5 hours, gets into a fight or simply goes and gets drunk. What does a woman do in this case? She calls her friends and for hours talks and analyzes and blames and moans, or closes herself at home and than talks to herself, and analyzes and blames and moans, or goes to her mother and talks, and analyzes…. So do you see a difference? Men simply don’t focus on their feelings, they let it pass by getting distracted by something else. They keep their minds away from all the negative thoughts. And women? They just don’t go over it like that, they analyze their feelings, they repeat all the negative emotions in their mind over and over again.

This can be illustrated by the same example Selingman used i his book. In a laboratory study men and women were offered to choose one of the two tasks to do than they were sad. One task was to choose the words which best described their mood, and the second one was to rank the nations according to their wealth. 70% of the women chose to rather focus on their mood than to get distracted than with the men these numbers were opposite. Men preferred to rank the nations and stop focusing on their negative feelings until they go away.

The best quote I could think of that would illustrate all this blog entry is made by Loius C.K. a brilliant stand up comedian (watch it on youtube, the one called Boys vs Girls). So what he said in one stand up show was summarized to one brilliant sentence : “A man will steal your car, burn your house down or beat the shit out of you. But a women will ruin your  life”